While he certainly didn’t expect to find himself posing next to four-legged, shaggy, spitting ungulates for Vogue.com’s "Llamas and Pajamas" story, model Garrett Neff is no stranger to collaborating with the animal kingdom. The 30-year-old male model has shared the camera with birds, cats, and dogs in his decade long career, in addition to navigating the fashion jungle in campaigns for Calvin Klein to Loewe. “The farm welcomed us into their home with open arms one cold winter morning . . . we were shooting their llamas around their property, in a garage out in a field, with their neighbors,” says Neff of the shoot. “It was quite different for me.“

Certainly, the Tully, New York, shoot was a far cry from where he was discovered, in Miami International Airport, returning from a study abroad in Barbados. “Some guy walks by me who was really well- dressed and was checking me out,” says Neff, and the man in question promised him that if he signed up with his agency, he’d be modeling for Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie & Fitch within a year. And sure enough, within a year he was.

Since then, Neff has become one of the most sought-after male models in the industry, but despite his success and the surplus of ogling Instagram fans (currently ringing in at more than 72,000), he does not exactly fit the over-the-top Zoolander stereotype. (“It used to be my favorite movie my freshman year,” says Neff. “But when I started modeling, it began to haunt me!”) For one thing, no surplus of vanity (or hand mirrors) here: “That is what the reverse camera on the iPhone is for,” he jokes. And he’s totally fine with sharing the spotlight—even with a camelid. "I never worked with llamas before, but they were really polite. I think they spat at their owner only once!” After all, even in the fashion world, manners are everything.